Never enough, baby. Never enough. All these crazy-gorgeous images are by Irene Muller, btw; accept no substitutes.

Today I took my freshly-detoxed ass (and the rest of me, though that is smaller) up to The Drive to get some groceries, because I had some cash and, being newly committed to health and all (to the point of digging up my perhaps ten-year-old Sun Run Training Plan) and by the way, it is very challenging to blog and grind coffee in a manual grinder at the same time, I’ll have you know if you’re not smarter than me and figured out already that I need servants and if you are how about it then, eh? we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog…

where was I? Ah yes, newly committed to health and looking for vegetables on the Drive, for lo, they may in sooth be somewhat fresher and vitaminier than those available on the red-dotted priced-to-move outside aisle of Sunrise Market where I usually shop and surely that marker isn’t good for you either.

So there I was.

Or rather, there I wasn’t. And why not, you ask, after we’ve come this far together? Eh?

Because I went for coffee.

At this point, those who live in or who are in recovery from living in Vancouver collapse in bemused stitches, for the Drive is nothing if not the home of Espresso in the West-o. It’s Italiantown. You can get kinds of dead, preserved pork and dried herbs and buffalo cheeses (although those are not as nice as advertised) there than can be found nowhere else in the city.

And it is perhaps a fifteen minute walk from my house.

I could have put my shoes on and been nursing a double latte in a nice china cup in less than the time it takes to work up a good blog post. But no, nothing is ever that simple for me.

I left the house not really because I was dying for chlorophyll in my diet, but rather because I was dying for caffeine in it.

I have a fresh pound of Gold Coast from my friend Jaime, and indeed had even ground up some thereof last night in anticipation of the pot I would brew and enjoy in the morning. But I was milkless, and as every right-thinking person knows, you cannot make a latte without milk. Those who are wrong-thinking can be easily identified in the lineup at Starbucks because they are the ones asking for a “decaf nonfat vanilla soymilk latte” with no foam because they think it’s fattening, and they should be confined to an institution for their own safety and the safety of the world at large, because you just know someone wound that tight is gonna snap one day and go all postal on the poor barista.

So obviously I could not stay at home. Cows don’t deliver anymore.

So off I went, to TrannieTown or rather more specifically to the Y-juncture of Powell and Cordova, where rests the only cafe of any latte-making nature round these parts still open after the social workers get off work at five, and lo it is indeed a *$ and a very nice one it is, too, with always a lineup of dog walkers at the drivethrough window.

But yeah, it’s in TrannieTown.

And lo, the Trannies of TrannieTown are spoiled, for they make a very nice double tall nonfat latte there, albeit a titch light in the hand, and they make it right quickly, too, which is important if you get paid by the act and not the hour. Which, as an allegedly-professional writer is supposed to be true of me as well, come to think of it.

So there I was.

And it was glorious. Bad coffee is just a caffeine injection system; good coffee is what God drinks when He thinks He has been particularly divine that week and deserves a reward.

Of course, what did I do once I’d trod the three or so miles up to the drive and bought FOUR heavy bags of lovely and health-nurturing groceries?

I stopped at Turks and got a half-pound of espresso and another coffee.

And it was, again, glorious. But it brings us right back to the whole needing-servants-thing, for verily it is near-impossible and really quite difficult to carry four heavy and swollen bags of vegetative matter and simultaneously drink a coffee, even if one has been clever and packed one’s adult sippy cup, ie expensive stainless steel thermal mug.

Alas, it must be confessed that it was drunk 1/4, but 3/4 of its silken richness now swims with the fishes, as I eventually gave up the heavyweight juggling act and poured it down a handy storm drain. A passing cop car slowed, visibly contemplating ticketing me for reintroducing liquids into the sewer system, but thankfully was called away to break up a fight, roust a junkie, or…

maybe they just decided it was too close to their coffee break.

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